Restarting my SLC project in West Texas

Frustrating day with the Graziano. I talked two of my car buddies who are super experienced into helping me mount the tranny. I was utterly unprepared. For one thing I did not grind enough material and the shaft was hitting the oil pan, finally got that fixed, it was an absolute PIA with the flywheel in place and the engine and mounting plate in place as well . Then I found out I did not have the alignment dowels, evidently did not come with the kit. The throwout bearing also did not come with the bolts needed, just the O rings.
The alignment tool listed in the wiki T10097 is WRONG!! I wish someone would fix that , way larger diameter than the pilot bearing .
I did accomplish grinding the oil pain and mounting the tranny without the clutch , so at least I know it fits. Now I need to order the 2 dowels and find the right alignment tool and hopefully get them to help me again next weekend. They did like the quesadillas my wife made though!!! Finished on a good note
 

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I am trying to see if Frank still has the clutch alignment tool, do you all know if there such a thing available I believe the pilot bearing ID is 15mm
 
do you guys know which is the right Audi dowel part number to mount the Graziano V8 onto the mounting plate
some posts have 086-301-153-A and others have 086-351-153-A.
 

Joel K

Supporter
do you guys know which is the right Audi dowel part number to mount the Graziano V8 onto the mounting plate
some posts have 086-301-153-A and others have 086-351-153-A.
Hector,

I purchased these from Jim Ellis Audi,
086301153A. I could not locate the other part number.

I will say they are a tad loose in the adapter plate. I would have thought they would be more snug to align it exactly.

As far as the clutch alignment tool I’ve seen confusion with regard to which tool to buy. If someone doesn’t respond I can ping my friend Stephan. He already installed his LS7 and Graz so he would know.
 
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Joel K

Supporter
trying to figure out what to do with the center console. The gated shifter set up is way offset to the passenger side. I do like the RCR center console, it curves nicely and fits into the tub very well , I will just have to make it wider and I think I will have to move the passenger seat as well. I think I am going to extend the dash all the way to the center console and mount all the controls there, as in this set up

Hector, I think if you wanted to you could center the RCR shifter mount bracket by bending back or cutting off the tab aligning the bracket on the drivers side and attaching it any number of ways. That being said, I think moving it over to the right makes it more comfortable for the driver. My guess is that bracket may have been designed for racing for cars without having a center console in place.

I am leaning toward moving the passenger seat over a bit, splitting the console down the center and widening it.
 
yes indeed, I don't have much room to work with on the driver side, so no choice there, as you know already had to cut the cage flange in order for the seat to fit, much less elegant solution than your fancy seat bracket LOL, I am truly a grinder!! so pending passenger seat fit , i think I will enlarge the center console to the side to cover the gated shifter frame and go form there ,nothing is straight forward on this project, but I am used to it now. rolling with the flow one problem at a time .
 
So I found out the Audi warehouse is in jacksonville FL. So i ordered the transmission dowels form the Jacksonville Audi, they have a nice on line parts ordering interface, hopefully I will get them soon. I also got a 1 1/16 metal rod , a friend of mine has a lathe and will make me a custom clutch alignment tool , the main clutch ID is just over 1 inch, and the pilot bearing is about 600 thousands. I also ordered 40mm bolts , a bit longer than the ones that came with the kit. Hopefully I will get everything soon and finally mount the Graziano .
In the meantime continue with the center console and figure out where all the switches will go , connect everything and fire this baby up !!!
 

Mark B.

Supporter
Hey Hector, when I installed mine I couldn't find a useful alignment tool, but you can actually access the clutch bolts through the starter mount hole in the transaxle. So I just loosely put the clutch bolts in, then used the input shaft as my alignment tool, then started snugging the bolts down through the starter hole, rotating the engine to get to them all. I pulled the transaxle back out to do the final clutch bolt torque, but that probably wasn't necessary. It was a bit of a hack, but I was desperate :)
 
WOW!! strong work, got it done, that's what is all about. I had a little time waiting for parts and making the tool should not a big deal at all , but thanks for the tip, just on case.
 
Well after much thought and encouragement I will tackle the drop gear project at home, thank you Frank Clark for the guidance and thank you Cam for offering to sell me his drop gear set .
Also thank you to Ken for posting this video , it helps me get oriented and assessing the magnitude of the project . I will try to document the best I can , I guess I can always bail out , right?
I am on my 5th iteration of the center console, not quite there yet but getting close .
 

Joel K

Supporter
Hector,

Dusty did a nice job documenting this process starting on post#40 in his build thread.

 
Hector,

Dusty did a nice job documenting this process starting on post#40 in his build thread.

yes i sent him a message thanking him for his post, helps a lot to have as much detail as possible ,
 
Ok Kurt, you ask and you shall receive , I have been busy, not efficient like you but nonetheless busy.
Lets start with transmission drop gear project., Cam nicely sold me his gear set since it was sitting on a shelf and he offered to me since I had not installed the tranny yet. Cam you rock!!!
I had a quote for $1200 to install the gear plus transportation, nope! Frank Clark gave me the confidence to tackle the project, Dusty also has a nice detail post , plus the manual , I figure is only a brand new $10k tranny , right? what could possibly go wrong, hold my beer LOL!!

Started very well, the tearing up went smooth except for the reverse gear, the manual did not indicate a puller was needed, but you do need one, and there is not much room to get behind it, you pretty much need to modify a puller to make a tooth very narrow, I did end up knocking one of the teeth but very very small nick, I ground it to have a smooth edge,
My friend super Dave (retired mechanic) was extremely helpful, we did it at his garage, he has a lot of room and a cherry picker, which we really did not need.
Only really needed two specialty tools , I will attach the picture
So the job was going great until we tried to install the new gear set, did not fit There are two versions one needs a shoulder machined, and of course Murphy's law says I have to have the wrong one .
John from HCF was super helpful and machined the gear for me, but did hold me back a couple of weeks .
During the installation I did grind the case by hand , I know a milling machine would have been much better, but just had to get it done .
The only part I would have done differently is while tightening one of the stacks there was no way to keep the shaft from turning as the gears were slipping, a flat plate with two holes to hold the parallel shaft would have done the job, hindsight is always 20-20, ended up using an air impact wrench, got very close to the old mark.
I ended up using a Honda wet type of gasket material between the casing mating surfaces, people suggested that on the lambo and Audi forums .
Everything was torqued to spec, and the order was followed to a T from the manual. Fingers crossed.
If any of you want to tackle the project , I will gladly loan you the specialty tool and walk you through it, It is as Frank stated a one day job. If you have the right gear, that is.
So the specialty tool is the socket with teeth, you also need a 38mm impact socket , it will be very hard with a regular wrench . and the tool to unpin and pin the collars.
 

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So, while I was waiting for the gear, I SLOOOOWLY finished the center console, my sincere thanks to Cam for teaching me all the basics of fiberglass and to Aaron Hamilton for the advanced class in clay modeling and mold making, I am sure he still thinks my parts are of lousy quality but I will get better
I will give you a series of pictures, from the initial concept, to moving the bracket to the middle so that the shifter would not stick out so much to the passenger side, the clay model which took me forever to get just right, then made mold from the clay model and finally made the pieces, then had to insert metal nuts in order to put everything together. it was super tricky to get it just right inside the stock center console , I did not want any rubbing and noise in there.
It probably would have been 100 times easier to start from scratch instead of modifying the console, but I am very happy with the result

It turned out to be a 4 part console , the other thing that was supper difficult was to center the gate perfectly and to be able to install the main body of the console and all the pieces after the shifter and cables are mounted to the frame , so maintenance or changing knobs or switches is super easy.

The metal piece is black anodized aluminum, but I probably wrap it , I am thinking gold , all black turned out too dark, needs some color. All the fiberglass pieces will be wrapped in a very nice black leather.

In case you are wondering, yes there is an ironman cover for the start button :) and a remote valentine one unit . And I don't need feedback on my welds LOL

here you go,
 

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I forgot to show you pictures of the molds I made from the clay models, So I made the clay model, made the mold from it, then made the pieces , used a layer of gel coat first then laid the fiberglass on top of the gel coat, that is why all the pieces have a white finish. Then sanded all the pieces for a nice smooth finish, fixed any defects, etc. then the leather will be the final step, probably a lot more than you wanted to see, but this helps me keep track of things. Looking back, that was a lot of work.
 

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Joel K

Supporter
Very nice progress Hector. Glad the drop gear install went well, that was not something I felt confident I could pull off myself and had Ron do it. We ran into the same issue with one of the gears needed machining.

I know that console was a ton of work and the end result was worth it. It came out great!
 
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